In Earth in Mind, David Orr writes, “I believe that most of us do what we do as environmentalists and profess what we do as professors because of an early, deep, and vivid resonance between the natural rules and ourselves” (45). I can see the logic behind this, and I’m sure it’s true much of the time. But, for whatever, reason, I don’t think it’s true for me. I think by Orr’s rubric, I am an unlikely environmentalist.
There are nature-lovers all over St. Olaf, people who ski and swim and post pictures on Facebook of their spring-break hikes along the Appalachian trail. I am not one of these. Sure, I grew up playing games outside like any kid, but not often beyond the network of neighborhood backyards. Trips out to a local wilderness walking trail along the river through the woods were by no means arduous, but they weren’t something I particularly looked forward to, especially if there were bugs. God, I hate bugs. I can appreciate them in an abstract all-life-is-beautiful-and-meaningful sort of way, but I really need a wall or four between me and them. I’m also a pretty big wimp when it comes to temperature. I hate being sweaty, and I hate being cold. Perhaps you can start to see just how out of tune with nature I am.
So why am I interested in environmental studies? It’s not something I had really thought about before. My gut instinct is to say that I’m interested in it because it’s something that someone has to take interest in. It’s a problem that needs solving, and not in a “oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we could save the whales?” sort of way. Global climate change and the host of other environmental issues facing the world are ones that need solving for the very survival of our race. But then why aren’t I taking courses in nuclear weaponry and diplomacy to try to avert a catastrophic nuclear Armageddon, or working my way up through the ranks of the military? Maybe it’s just because weather-wimps don’t do so well in the deserts of the Middle East, either, but I’ll try to probe for a deeper meaning than that.
I got to thinking about my other interests besides environmental studies, principally music, writing, and politics. Why am I interested in these topics? The reasons I came up with were very different than why I’m interested in the environment.
First, music. I got into music because I tagged along to my sister’s piano lessons when I was but a wee lad, and eventually my mother decided that as long as I was there, I should start taking lessons too. Now it’s fifteen-odd years later and I play eight instruments, sing in a choir and a folk duet, listen to music endlessly, and find some of my greatest joy in playing music with friends and some of my greatest release in writing songs. So while the choice to begin music might not have been mine in the beginning, over the thousands of hours I have spent with music, I have come to own it and love it. I can convey things with music I can’t in any other way, and have learned things from it that I would not have learned otherwise. Re-reading the paragraph above me, music seems like a very selfish interest for me. I certainly have hopes that by playing music and writing songs I might have some small influence on the world or other people, but that’s not why I do music. Music is for me.
It’s a little bit different with writing. Whereas I started listening to music after I started playing it, I started writing because I loved reading and wanted to create something like what I was reading. I’m still working on loving the process of writing, but I’m getting better, moving beyond the point of enjoying merely having written. So again, writing is something that I seem to do for personal enjoyment or fulfillment.
My love of politics probably started with my love for the television show The West Wing, which is to this day my favorite show of all time. It taught be about politics, ideologies, and about humanity as well. I liked the drama of elections and political in-fighting and started following political news for real-life excitement before I figured out that politics could be used as a tool to effect change I want to see in the world. So my interest in politics started out as something that interested me for its own sake, and has evolved to become something I study academically and want to use to make the world a better place. But politics, like music and writing, is something I would still do if I didn’t “have to.”
The environment doesn’t fit as easily into a timeline of my life as these last three. I can’t point to a formative experience or period of time when I woke up to environmental issues. I remember watching An Inconvenient Truth in high school chemistry, but while it made me think, I don’t remember a fundamental change, an “aha” moment. I think that if the environment was fine and unthreatened, I wouldn’t be nearly so interested in studying it. In this sense, it’s something I am doing because in some sense I *have* to be. That’s not to say I don’t love studying the environment and environmental issues, but I don’t think it’s as intrinsic a part of who I am as politics, music and writing.
drainingfiction-blog-blog posted this